orichalcum

Remember the Democratic physicist running for Congress endorsed by dozens of Nobel Laureates, who I blogged about a while ago? His name is Bill Foster, and last night he won a special election here in Illinois to become a new U.S. Representative for IL-14. What's significant about this besides a really smart scientist getting elected? He got elected to Denny Hastert's old seat, the former Republican Speaker who resigned so he could avoid lobbying restrictions. This was a heavily Republican district, one which should have been easy for the Republican Party. John McCain came out to campaign for him, and the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee spent 20% of their entire budget trying to get his opponent, Jim Oberweis (whose family's dairy products we drink, oddly enough) elected. Meanwhile, Obama cut an ad for Foster and sent him lots of volunteers.

If the Republican Party can't hang on to Hastert's seat, a district which Bush won by 12 points, they're in trouble come November.

Also, it's +1 superdelegate for Obama, presumably. For the number-crunchers out there, that means that last night he made up the probable difference (4 delegates) that Clinton gained on March 4th, and actually gained another 4 delegates from the final official vote count in CA. :)

Yay physics and math!